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The
Vision of Escaflowne is a 26 episode anime TV series from the lair of
Japanese animation producers, Sunrise.
The series was originally shown on Japanese TV in 1996, and in
1998 was finally subtitled into English by AnimeVillage.com, making it
available to those of us Anime nuts willing to spend lots of our hard
earned cash importing videos from America(except for those lucky ones of
us who speak Japanese-they already had it!).
Personally, I had been downloading music and pictures from
Escaflowne off the web, and so I was very excited to finally get to see
the series. The first
episode opens in a slow, ponderous way, introducing us to the heroine of
the series Hitomi Kanzaki, a 15 year old girl who is interested in Tarot
cards and Dowsing(played by the wonderful Maaya Sakamoto) and her life
as a runner in her school team. We
are also presented with a little teenage romance, in the form of Amano
Susumu(“Amano-Sempi!”^_^), the captain of Hitomi`s running team.
However, this peaceful life is shattered when she begins to have
visions of a swordsman named Van, visions which end with her falling
into darkness only to be saved by a man with wings.
She finally decides to tell Amano how she feels about him, and
asks him, if she can run the hundred metres in under 13 seconds, to give
her her first kiss. However,
while she is running the hundred metres a pillar of light appears and
the swordsman(Van-Sama!!!!!) From her dreams appears in front of her,
along with a massive land dragon. After
a spectacular battle, Hitomi finds herself, along with Van, enveloped in
a pillar of light and transported to a land called Gaea, a land where
she can see the Earth and the Moon in the sky together.
From here, the story develops into an incredible story of action,
suspense and mystery to rival that of most RPGs, with a cast of
intensely likable characters and some of the best mecha action(and
designs) that you are ever likely to see(I personally rank the mecha in
Escaflowne as the best I have ever seen, but that`s not surprising when
you consider that they come from the same man who designed the mecha for
Macross).
The mechas have slightly medieval looks about them, and the mecha
sword fighting is stunning. However,
the appeal of Escaflowne is not in the mecha alone.
The characters are very developed and detailed, and you really
ending up caring about the welfare of the principle characters more so
than in any single film, or for that matter, any other anime series(with
the possible exception of Evangelion).
The love story contained within the series is very touching, and
the numerous flashbacks throughout the series give you an in depth look
into the emotions and pasts of the main characters.
The storyline is full of mystery, with several unexpected twists,
and in many places it feels a lot like watching The Mysterious Cities of
Gold, ancient mysteries slowly unravelling as the story progresses.
The
animation in Escaflowne is, although
not in the league of films, such as Ghost in the Shell, superb.
Beautifully detailed background combine with smoothly animated
characters and computer graphics(this is one of few times when I have
felt the use of computer graphics work in an anime series), to create
one of the most visually stunning animes you will ever see.
In particular the fight scenes with the mecha will take your
breath away, computer graphics blending in seamlessly with the
traditional animation. The
beautiful colouring and backgrounds all help to create one of the most
stunning fantasy worlds in all of fantasy anime. The music is absolutely
incredible. Written by the
renowned Yoko Kanno(who also wrote the music for Macross Plus, Brain
Powered, and more recently, Cowboy Bebop) the score manipulates every
possible emotion, creating everything moments of tension that have your
eyes straining out of their sockets to moments of calm that make you
feel at peace with everything around you.
The vocal talent of Maaya Sakamoto also create some of the best
and most moving anime songs ever.
Andrew
Joseph
Andrew
Joseph
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